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Description

Research Methods: Information, Systems, and Contexts, Second Edition, presents up-to-date guidance on how to teach research methods to graduate students and professionals working in information management, information science, librarianship, archives, and records and information systems. It provides a coherent and precise account of current research themes and structures, giving students guidance, appreciation of the scope of research paradigms, and the consequences of specific courses of action. Each of these valuable sections will help users determine the relevance of particular approaches to their own questions.

The book presents academics who teach research and information professionals who carry out research with new resources and guidance on lesser-known research paradigms.

Key Features

Provides up-to-date knowledge of research methods and their applications

Provides a coherent and precise account of current research themes and structures through chapters written by authors who are experts in their fields

Helps students and researchers understand the range of quantitative and qualitative approaches available for research, as well as how to make practical use of them

Provides many illustrations from projects in which authors have been involved, to enhance understanding

Emphasises the nexus between formulation of research question and choice of research methodology

Enables new researchers to understand the implications of their planning decisions

Readership

Research students, researchers, academics involved in teaching research, information professionals in higher education, research, and corporate libraries working alongside researchers, or carrying out independent research

Details

About the Editor

Kirsty Williamson

Kirsty Williamson has focused her career almost entirely on research since 1996 when she obtained her PhD. For much of that time she was Director of the research group, Information and Telecommunications Needs Research (ITNR), a joint initiative of Monash University and Charles Sturt University in Australia. She has undertaken many research projects and has received many research grants from a range of different non-government and government organisations, including the principal funding body of Australian Universities, the Australian Research Council (ARC). Her research has been widely published.

Affiliations and Expertise

Senior Research Fellow, Monash University and Charles Sturt University, Australia

Graeme Johanson

Graeme Johanson is Director of the Centre for Community Networking Research at Monash University. He has undertaken academic research for 45 years, and his research findings are widely published. He has supervised many research projects, mainly about the evaluation and use of information and communications technologies for the benefit of developing countries and marginalised groups of people. His initial interest in archives, historical documents, and oral history led him to work as a librarian in research institutions for ten years before becoming an academic focusing on information management and community informatics.

Affiliations and Expertise

Director, Centre for Community Networking Research, Monash University

Reviews

"In their second edition of Research Methods: Information, Systems and Contexts, Williamson and Johanson (2018) have tackled these tensions well, both in their inclusive approach to the book as well as by introducing diverse contexts while keeping to the deep and the oretical roots of the discipline. ...Research Methods is a substantial review and critique of research methods in the discipline, accompanied by useful and interesting reflections." --Library and Information Science Research

"The book that you are about to read provides a fresh perspective on research in information science. There is something for everyone here – whether you are new to research in the discipline, or whether you are a seasoned scholar looking for new and inspiring ideas." --Professor Lisa Given. Associate Dean, Research and Development, Faculty of Health, Arts and Design, Swinburne University of Technology and President, Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), 2018.

"It is not easy to find anything that addresses both qualitative and quantitative paradigms in library and information studies in detail. Williamson and Johanson’s book thoroughly satisfies these criteria, and is an engaging discussion of fundamental concepts, as well as of the wider research landscape. ...Each chapter has its own extensive references which is more helpful than a single end-of-the-book reference list because it clusters and contextualises the publications. Chapters stand alone as well as contributing to the whole; the book can be dipped into as well as read more comprehensively." -Information Research

"Research Methods is a substantial review and critique of research methods in the discipline, accompanied by useful and interesting reflections. The attention to theory as well as the practical toolkits, resources and cases make the text accessible and relevant to researchers and practitioners at different stages in their research careers." -Information Research

Ratings and Reviews

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5 star rating

11/02/19

An excellent research methods text

I return to this book regularly, and have used it in my own research and recommended it to students (especially post-graduate) and colleagues. It is appropriate for new researchers, especially those such as PhD students who are planning a large research project, and for more experienced researchers and lecturers who are conducting their own research or teaching and supervising research. There really isn’t much else that is comparable to this book. There's lots on qualitative research or on quantitative research or on particular methods (such as grounded theory), but few that cover it all and focus on LIS as this does. The book can be used in two main ways: 1) to provide an overview of the methods and tools for a new researcher, and in that way it is worth reading it from cover to cover; and 2) as a reference book, where specific chapters can be consulted.

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5 star rating

12/12/18

A must-have

This is a must-have. It is a well-structured book, which can guide one's research throughout. I studied this book carefully, and it profoundly informed the design of my study. I found the first section, especially chapters one, two, and five very informative. It helped me understand the proceeding chapters much better and illuminated my way forward. The same is also true for section four, which helped me make a broader sense of it all. In my view, this book literally educates its readers and is an excellent source for future reference.

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5 star rating

11/12/18

Extremely recommended for Mphil and PhD level

This is an amazing book. It is extremely helpful as I am doing PhD and following Grounded Theory for my research. The book covers a range of other research methodologies as well as methods in details. Very helpful. I highly recommend it for those who doing research.

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5 star rating

30/11/18

A well-thumbed resource

The first (and now second edition) of this text has lived on my desk throughout my masters and PhD. The text outlines the prominent paradigms, methodologies and methods in information systems research and is always the first resource I refer to.

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3 star rating

14/05/18

different expectation

Probably I was expecting the content to be more on the undergraduate level -more in the how-to conduct research, rather than in the state-of-art of research methodologies and processes. The content is very extensive, and there's a wide spectrum of aspects related to research methodology covered. So from that standpoint, the book is worth its weight.